


Pockets of Memories

by Semira



Series: While You Were Sleeping [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brother Feels, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Repressed Winchesters, Gen, Hospitals, POV Outsider, Stubborn Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3204107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semira/pseuds/Semira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man named Dean Winchester already looks ready to throw a punch, or maybe cry, so the doctor doesn't tell him what she saw, but she wonders, then and later, whether he realizes how much his little brother loves him.</p><p> </p><p> In other words: <em>Sometimes, Dean doesn't get to see how much Sam cares. Of course he doesn't.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Pockets of Memories

The patient signed in under the name Sam Winchester stops breathing for about twenty seconds. 

In the grand scheme of things, twenty seconds is negligible. There are very few things a person can do for twenty seconds that will impress anyone, but a hospital is a place where seconds matter. In the trauma department, minutes are portioned into sixty ugly little pieces, each piece with its own problems.

In college, the pre-med students have bright eyes. In med school and during internships, some of the eyes are still bright—eye drops, bright lights, caffeine, lack of sleep—but after a while the life just wears them down to raw nerves, because in a profession where every second brings a new calamity, the powers that be somehow see it fit to put people on twelve-hour-plus shifts.

Outside the doors and down the halls, the boy's big brother—well, _older_ , at least—waits, hunched into a plastic chair and staring at the walls like he can see through all of them.

For twenty seconds, they do what they always do, barring DNR orders and such. They work to bring their patient back.

Sam Winchester—not the type, it seems, to do anything by halves—lurches back to life with a rasping inhalation and a distressing attempt to scramble off the gurney. It fails, of course, considering his condition, but it's still a fiasco.

When he's stable and on his way to a room, the doctor walks outside, feeling grimy and unattractive with the realization that she forgot to deodorize this morning, and she finds the kid's older brother.

“You can see him if you'd like,” she says, quiet in the way hospitals make people quiet, as if somehow they'll upset sleeping ghosts, which is absurd—there are a lot of things the young doctor will believe in before she believes in ghosts.

The older brother shrinks even further into himself, which sends an acid curl of discomfort through the doctor's belly. A man this big, this solid, should never look so fragile. She should be used to it. She's seen so many broken men and women before. Some people say it's a good feeling to get used to it, but a part of her hopes she never will.

“Nah,” the older brother murmurs. “He won't want to see me. I don't... Right now, Sammy's just...he's—he thinks...”

The doctor sighs. “Dean, right?”

The man looks up, and suddenly there's a whole new reason for the discomfort, and it's not because even with stubble and crow's feet the man is breathtakingly handsome. No, she's had time to get used to that. She's seen the pretty ones dead and alive.

No. It's the cold, empty suspicion he levels at her, a quiet cruelty that speaks of _years_ of things she can't imagine, and she feels like her organs are crawling inside her, trying to get away. “I don't think I introduced myself to you,” he growls.

She doesn't answer that. “Visit your brother,” she says instead, and the cruelty on his face disappears again, settling back into the tired, drawn expression of pain she's already come to associate with him.

Eventually, he gets up, and she gives fast directions to the room.

This man—Dean—he's one of those types, she can tell. (She had a boyfriend like him once, and good riddance to that fellow and all his baggage.) He's the type of man who has these ideas, these deep-rooted fears and insecurities, that he clings to like they're part of him, things he won't let anyone disabuse him of.

He already looks ready to throw a punch, or maybe cry, so the doctor doesn't tell him what she saw, but she wonders, then and later, whether he realizes how much his little brother loves him.

Dean Winchester was right. He didn't introduce himself to her.

When Sam rasped his way back to life, though, he put his brother before everything, before breathing. Before he even drew a breath, the sound started in his throat, and then he'd gasped his first breath in with the sound of a word, swallowing it into his lungs. 

Dean. The word he said before he even drew breath.

It's touching at the same time it's sad, and it follows her all day, and the next day, too, and maybe it will end up in those pockets of memories all medical professionals carry around—the ones that keep you going.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Supernatural fic. I told myself I'd stay out of this fandom in order to avoid throwing all my emotion and spare time at these wonderful characters. Obviously, I failed. I wrote this because there are so many moments in the story where the brothers have this heart-wrenching near-miss with realizing how much they really care for each other, and of course they're too emotionally constipated and insecure to admit or acknowledge when they actually do try to do the emotion thing. Ugh. Stop. MY FEELINGS.


End file.
